Tasty Tales and Tips from a Culinary Traveler in Italy and France

December 19, 2010

Italy on a Plate - The Week in Italian Food: 12-19-2010

It's a merry week of Italian food. Many Italian Christmas recipes fill up the top 10 Italian recipes this week. Eating Italy also has a few Christmas-themed features along with one about a pork binge, Parma food museums, a little-known wine region in Northern Italy and, of course, chocolate. I hope you enjoy this week's edition of Italy on a Plate. Buon Natale and Buon Appetito!

My Choice for this Week's Top 10 Italian Recipes from Around the Web:

Frank helps you out if you have an extra ham hock around: Mushroom Barley Soup - Memorie di Angelina

Guanciale and Pasta a la Gricia A little bit of information on one of my favorite parts of the pig, guanciale (necessary for any Amatriciana dish) and another classic Roman pasta recipe - Elizabeth Minchilli in Rome

Comments

There's an old Italian tradition that I haven't heard much of lately and I really miss it. I always loved Spumoni ice cream, but I can't find it in local stores anywhere. American companies have gone to making all these trendy ice cream flavors like "eggnog," "gingerbread," "pumpkin pie," "candy cane" ... I even saw "hot chocolate" (which includes marshmallow, of course). But no spumoni. Do they even make it in Italy any more??

All of these look so good-thankfully I am finished with my holiday baking-I am visitng my parents and there is a great Italian store in their city that I will visit to see what Christmas treats are there. I love anything with figs. I made a Christmas cake with pine nuts, dried figs and other dried fruit.